Tidbits - December 24, 2011

-  Republicans Have Now Shown Their Cards (Stewart Acuff)
-  Re: Why the Republican Crackup Is Bad for America (Burt
   Cohen)
-  Re: Why Do GOP Bosses Fear Ron Paul? (Austin Murphy,
   Gordon Fitch, Richard Butsch, Stan Nadel)
-  Re: Portside Readers Respond: Iraq (John Case)
-  Re: Victory for Peace Movement - But What a Heinous Crime
   (Dave Ecklein)
-  Re: Why Is the N.Y.P.D. After Me? (Isabel Thompson, Amiri
   Baraka, Eileen Kovac)
-  Lost Writings of SDS (Jerry Harris)
==========

-  Republicans Have Now Shown Their Cards

It is now beyond obvious that the Tea Party Republicans in
the US House are determined to turn our democracy into an
oligarchy. After doing all they can to protect the Bush tax
cuts for the super rich, they are doing all they can to
avoid extending President Obama's tax cuts for the middle
class and working families.

Speaker Boehner and Eric Cantor are twisting themselves into
pretzels trying to justify their actions.

It is hard to imagine how American political leaders could
have so much disdain for average Americans.

Remember this tax cut extension passed the Senate with 89
votes including 39 Republicans--but Boehner can't get his
House Republican caucus to pass it.

This is not Democrats vs Republicans. This is the Radical
Rightwing demonstrating their contempt, disdain, and hatred
for average Americans.

These House radical tea baggers are happy to extend the tax
cut if they can include a shortening of unemployment
benefits. After all, they can't do something good and
sensible without punishing other average

Stewart Acuff

==========

-  Re: Why the Republican Crackup Is Bad for America

White Southern radicals. They have never gone away. The war
denying them secession only aggravated their desire to leave
the Union. There are certain historical inevitabilities.
Like Ireland and Palestine gaining freedom from their
occupiers. The South is a different culture, we can never
make them go away unless we let them go away. We are not one
nation, and one nation can not impose its culture on any of
the others which are currently fastened together with rusty
old baling wire. The sooner we recognize each nation will
never be dominated, the better. The south would be happy to
let us in the north go our way, so long as they can go
theirs. Let us liberals govern ourselves, the irrepressible
southerners govern themselves.

Burt Cohen
New Castle NH

==========

-  Re: Why Do GOP Bosses Fear Ron Paul?

Good analysis, except that Ron Paul also represents crony
capitalism, just the oil company form of it. He's the
representative of Koch Oil's tea party bags, who have been
brainwashed to be rabidly pro-oil and anti-environment, and
they don't care so much about the defense contractors and
banks, which control the other wing of the Republican Party
that is indeed frightened by the fact that many tea bags and
other Republican voters want to stop the wars and bank
bailouts.

Dr. Austin Murphy

===

It's ironic that the only visible candidate for the
presidency who is against war, imperialism, the police-
surveillance-security state, and bailouts for the rich, is a
Republican.  One wonders what happened to the progressives.
I guess they've been neutralized.

Gordon Fitch

===

Taft also was vehemently opposed to unions and succeeded in
weakening them with the Taft-Hartley Act.

Richard Butsch

===

This pathetic analysis makes Ron Paul sound like a good guy.
It ignores his virulent racism and his links to neo-Nazis
and it is disgusting to see a supposed leftist promoting
this racist.

Stan Nadel
Salzburg Austria

===

-  Re: Portside Readers Respond: Iraq

Michael Eisenscher writes:

    " It has been within Obama's power and authority to
    end that travesty at any point since he took office
    in January of 2009.  He did not. "

What is the evidence for this statement? Am I wrong in
reading Woodward's book that, contrary to the explicit words
of the constitution, presidents do not in real life just
"order" the US military, especially when they lack a veto
proof majority in Congress,  and not to mention a trillion
dollars of various contracts, treaty obligations, ordnance
and boots on the ground are involved.

Even proposing an END TO ESCALATION in Afghanistan got Obama
an "FU" from the brass... Mike's dissing of Obama's role
seems naive to me -- unless he has more information than
shared in his post.

Further, I don't understand what is left for US to do in
Iraq that would be welcome by anyone there. Even the
"allies" -- Maliki, etc -- want us gone and "outa-there" --
never mind the resistance! Is the U.S. peace movement
supposed to now go mediate sectarian splits horribly
aggravated by the invasion and occupation?

John Case

==========

-  Re: Victory for Peace Movement - But What a Heinous Crime

The crime is certainly spelled out, at least in part, by
this article.

But there is no "victory for the peace movement" here.  US
forces were withdrawn because the Iraqi courts refused the
demand of legal immunity for US personnel in possible war
crimes trials.  The result for the US, if they stayed, would
be a public relations disaster.

And as even a child watching the news can see, the war has
not ended.  The US is just not taking as prominent a part in
it for now.

The peace movement should celebrate removal of US forces
from Iraq, but it cannot claim much credit for doing so.
That must go to the Iraqis, who have shown some spunk.

Dave Ecklein

==========

-  Re: Why Is the N.Y.P.D. After Me?

Excellent article.

I want to make a joke re 'furtive' ...  but this isn't the
time to do so.

LWB.  Living while black/brown and I should add M for male.

In the 90s there were way too many young black males being
shot, and questions asked after.  I remember walking to the
subway at 81st Street and seeing two cops watching a boy
walking down the subway steps.  I immediately stood directly
behind him and followed him down the steps. I felt I needed
to protect this young man, and doubted the cops would shoot
a white woman in the back.... What a way to have to think
and live.

If NPR is talking about the cops stopping young black/brown
men and claiming to find marijuana, when they are not
supposed to go into their pockets or socks and shoes....
it's serious.

We need a 'Police Spring' ....  we need a complete overhaul
of the behavior of the police, judges, prosecutors.  Try
serving on a jury when the defendants are black!

I imagine Nicholas Peart has survived because his mother
taught him well!

Best wishes with your studies.

Isabel Thompson

===

Bravo!!

Amiri Baraka

===

-  Response to Nicholas K. Peart

Nicholas, thank you for sharing what has to cause you pain
(Why Is the NYPD After Me?).

I am a former (still feels real) New Yorker who left at the
age of 17, returned intermittently, and have since lived in
four other cities including my present home of Tigard,
Oregon, which is a burb of Portland.

There has never been a day in my adult life that I have not
been aware of the facts you state, though my experience is
not yours. Because I am female. And white. More or less off
the radar screen you speak of.

In 1990 upon arriving in Portland, surely one of America's
whitest cities, I looked for ways to build an intercultural
personal community. In so doing, I became an interracial
dialogue facilitator, and in this atmosphere I was
privileged and saddened to hear the daily survival stories
of African American males. My facilitation partner, a well-
known black art dealer, once said to our group (paraphrasing
here): "You may read about the abuse African American men
face in what you consider a no-problem existence, but you do
not have my perspective. Every day I awake, look into my
bathroom mirror, and say, 'what does life hold for you, an
African American male, today? , , , how will I be treated? .
. . will people look at who I am, beyond my color?' "

Decades later, black men are still being stopped (in
Portland, too) for no other reason than the color of their
skin. I wonder when people-all people-will become angry
enough to change the system.

Wishing you luck in your efforts, and thanking you again for
your words,

Eileen Kovac

==========

Carl Davidson's 'Lost Writings of SDS'

    Collection of 'lost' SDS writings reveals depth
    of Sixties radical thinking

By Jerry Harris
The Rag Blog
December 19, 2011

http://theragblog.blogspot.com/2011/12/books-jerry-harris-carl-davidsons-lost.html

    [Revolutionary Youth and the New Working Class:
    Lost Writings of SDS, edited by Carl Davidson;
    (Pittsburgh PA: Changemaker Publications,
    2011.)]

Carl Davidson has done a tremendous service to anyone
who studies the history of social movements or anyone
interested in the 1960s rebellion. This "lost"
collection of papers reveals the depth and richness of
radical thinking coming out of the student movement as
the war raged in Vietnam and militant protestors
marched through the streets of America.

The most important document is the "Port Authority
Statement," by SDS members David Gilbert, Robert
Gottlieb, and Gerry Tenney. Although at the time not
widely circulated, it offers great insight into the
thinking and analysis of SDS as it turned to
revolutionary theory and debate. This is an impressive
document, detailed in statistical and economic
analysis, grounded in revolutionary social theory, and
innovative in its thinking and insights.

One of the most important sections of the paper was its
class analysis with its focus on the new working class
and the relationship of students to an economy shifting
from manufacturing to services and technology. The
document notes that, "Modern American capitalism is
characterized by rapid technological change with
scientific knowledge growing at a logarithmic rate."
This will result in the "elimination of unskilled labor
(as) the blue-collar sector will decrease (and) jobs
that require high degrees of education and training"
will increase. (pages 88-89)

That analysis was made in 1966. Now read a recent
article by Edward Luce from the Financial Times (Dec.
11, 2011) : "the middle-skilled jobs that once formed
the ballast of the world's wealthiest middle class are
disappearing. They are being supplanted by relatively
low-skilled (and low-paid) jobs that cannot be replaced
either by new technology or by offshoring -- such as
home nursing and landscape gardening. Jobs are also
being created for the highly skilled, notably in
science, engineering and management.

Decades later the paper's main thesis still holds up.

Continuing its class analysis the Port Authority
document examined the capitalist class and the debate
over ownership and control. The authors focused
attention on the growing trend towards paying
executives with large stock rewards, merging management
and ownership.

Again we can turn to a recent article by Richard Peet,
published in the December 2011 Monthly Review that
reads, "More recently, David Harvey has argued that
ownership (share holders) and management (CEOs) of
capitalist enterprises have fused together, as upper
management is increasingly paid with stock options."
This "recent" argument now being made by a leading
Marxist trails Port Authority by some 45 years.

Although the authors grasped the sweeping impact that
technology would have on American workers, what they
could not see would be globalization and the advent of
neoliberalism as a governing ideology.

As the paper noted at the time, "Corporate liberalism
implies that the dominant economic institution is the
corporation and that the prevailing political and
social mode is liberalism." (page 68) Of course it's
understandable how such changes would be all but
invisible in 1966; it's also a good reminder why
political tactics and strategy must remain flexible and
activists should always be willing to reevaluate their
analysis.

The above are but a few of the enticing insights that
are contained in page after page of these documents. As
new social movements gather force throughout the world,
a look into the thinking of activists from the last
great social movement can help give direction to coming
future battles.

I would highly recommend this book to all activists and
academics interested in building a better world.

[Jerry Harris is National Secretary of the Global
Studies Association and author of The Dialectics of
Globalization.]

Find articles by Carl Davidson on The Rag
Blog.

http://theragblog.blogspot.com/search/label/Carl%20Davidson

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